Saving Leuser ecosystem poses a long-term challenge

By Serge Wich

MEDAN, North Sumatra (JP): The Leuser ecosystem is one of the most important rain forest preserves in the world and arguably the most important in Southeast Asia.

No other area can boast a mixture of habitats from long beaches fringing the Indian Ocean, to large tracts of coastal peat swamps, to humid lowland forests, placid lakes, long rift valleys, steep volcanoes and mountains which, until recent times, were covered in glaciers. Nowhere else in the world do orangutan, elephant, rhino and tiger live in the same area. The community of lesser animals and an unknown number of plants still await the attention of science.

The extraordinary richness of nature in Leuser is possibly reason enough to conserve this area. But there are other reasons.

For eons, a large part of the Leuser ecosystem has had a high cultural value to the people that surround it. In 1928, the traditional leaders of the communities living near the western half of what is now the Leuser ecosystem requested that their forests and all that lay beneath be conserved for all time. After about seven years of lobbying, the rugged mountains on the interior were given protected status, but the rich lowlands that constituted about half the area were excluded.

Another important reason is that the Leuser ecosystem provides essential environmental services to up to four million people.

Things like water, flood control, local climate regulation and fresh water fisheries are all utilized by the people living around Leuser. The city of Medan relies on its water. The industrial hub at Lhokseumawe in Aceh (gas fields, fertilizer plants, paper mills and so on) all rely on Leuser's water, as do large areas of rice fields. Without these services and many more, sustainable economic development in Aceh and parts of North Sumatra would be impossible.

So what is being done to conserve Leuser?

The good news is that there is adequate legislation in place to support the conservation of the Leuser ecosystem. There are government agencies that are given a major mandate in protecting parts of the area -- the designated Gunung Leuser National Park which lies at the heart of the Leuser ecosystem, a grand forest park near Brastagi in North Sumatra, the designated Singkil Swamp Wildlife Sanctuary, the Lingga-Isaq Hunting Reserve and a strict nature reserve in the Serbajadi water catchment.

The downside is that government agencies charged with protecting these areas have only limited resources at their disposal.

To address these problems, the Leuser Development Program (LDP) was instigated. This cooperation, jointly funded by the Indonesian government and the European Union was, at the time of its inception, one of the largest conservation projects in the world. The project budget is 50.5 million euro -- of which the European Union is contributing a grant of 32.5 million euro.

As a result of this intervention, the Leuser ecosystem (not just the complex of conservation areas named above) has received significant policy support. In short, it is now considered a natural entity in its own right.

Local support

The Leuser ecosystem is about three times the size of Gunung Leuser National Park and support for its conservation and sustainable utilization is growing daily. Not surprisingly, the first efforts to conserve Leuser came from the traditional leaders of Aceh and North Sumatra.

Subsequently, universities, youth groups and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), of which there are currently more than 200, have begun actively working to support the conservation of Leuser. An NGO, the Leuser International Foundation, even has a role in the management of the area. School books to be used throughout the province of Aceh are soon to be distributed. The long process of raising awareness and developing a sense of ownership has begun.

In addition to the software referred to above, much has happened on the ground. Large areas of degraded forest have been rehabilitated; boundaries have been marked and planted by local communities with commercial tree crops; over 400,000 hectares of forest planned for clearance have been saved and are being processed for conservation status.

Small tourism sites were developed but the situation in Aceh made further development impractical for the time being. Several logging concessions which were on areas of excessively steep slopes have ceased operation. Two road proposals which would have had a severe negative impact on the ecosystem were discontinued and a major swamp drainage scheme was shelved before it could begin.

There are, however, still many challenges to face. One that has received a lot of publicity of late has been illegal logging, which is occurring in most of the country's easily accessible forests.

Some people have asked what the program is doing to help.

Indonesian policy is clear on this point. The job of stopping illegal logging is very much the responsibility of government agencies -- special forestry staff, the police and sometimes the military. If any arrests are made, then it is the job of the judiciary to process the cases. The fact that illegal logging continues, and in fact is getting worse, means that either the agencies responsible are not willing to take care of the matter or they are not able to.

The LDP has provided information to a broad range of parties about illegal logging and sometimes this information has been acted upon by courageous effort, particularly by local forestry and national park staff. But the organization behind illegal logging -- from protection in the field to the transport of the timber to processing plants and finally the marketing -- are well-financed and given strong armed support. Stopping illegal logging will therefore require sustained political pressure from the highest levels in Indonesia.

If the Leuser ecosystem can be effectively conserved -- and despite all the problems there is good reason to be optimistic -- then Indonesia will have a resource of extraordinary richness of the like of which exists nowhere else. The local economies will benefit greatly and the people will live richer lives. This would be the ultimate win-win solution.

The writer is a long-term researcher on Primatology in Leuser (sponsored by Utrecht University).